BACOLOD, NEGROS OCCIDENTAL – The Abungalow Residency Project and Sachet Projects are pleased to announce the culmination of Tokwa Peñaflorida’s two-month residency with the exhibition, Walang Naiwan Kundi ang Hamog sa mga Dahon (Nothing Left But the Dew on the Leaves). This new body of work, on view starting October 25, 2025, features paintings that explore queer lifeworlds through the sensuous materiality of the Negrense landscape.
During their residency, Peñaflorida assumed the role of a pollinator, allowing their signature queer figurations to germinate in and around the residency’s location. They created works en plein air and in conversation with local sites—among stone tablets at the local cemetery, underneath a bridge, and by the river, where spirits are said to linger and play. This practice grounds the artist’s fantastical imagery in nature, establishing a profound analogy between the natural environment and queer existence.
A work in progress shot of Tokwa’s “Murcia” piece, a large mixed media work on paper depicting a river bathing scene. Photo by Nicolas Tolentino
Nature, Desire, and the Ephemeral
The exhibition title, taken from a poem by Allan Popa, reflects the works’ central theme: suspension. Peñaflorida captures moments suspended between opposing states—between the condensation of dew and its evaporation, between flowering and withering, and between breaths. The paintings depict remote, secluded environments thick with foliage, rendered in rich, varying shades of green.
Within these pockets of nature, masculine bodies emerge—otherworldly and disjunct from their surroundings. In the painting Dapithapon, for example, two figures stand before a gate; their skin is painted in fluorescent colors, shining like the surface of ripened fruit. A profound tension hangs in the air of the works, suggesting that the subjects might vanish if they were to notice the viewer’s presence.
Foraging as Cruising
Peñaflorida deepens the analogy between nature and queer experience by likening the act of foraging to cruising. In these “spaces cut off from reality,” the bodies in the paintings assume new, transformative forms. Limbs are elongated to mimic the morphology of leaves, and skin is variegated by marks of the natural world. Figures transform into local mythological beings: the Kapre, with a neck as thick as a bicep and undulating muscles, or the Sirom-sirom, small and seemingly vulnerable, but possessing insect-like wings ready to fly away at the first sign of danger. The works celebrate a transformation where flesh becomes one with the wild, embodying vulnerability, desire, and survival.
Source Note: This descriptive text is adapted from Franco Brobio’s exhibition texts.
The exhibition Walang Naiwan Kundi ang Hamog sa mga Dahon will run from October 25, 2025 to November 25, 2025 at Kapitana Gallery in Balay ni Tana Dicang, Talisay City, Negros Occidental. The opening reception will be on October 25, Saturday at 7PM.
About Tokwa Peñaflorida: Tokwa Peñaflorida (b.1989) is an artist whose diverse work spans children’s book illustrations, conceptual art, and queer erotica. Queering Filipino and western folk-religious and occult iconographies and his questioning of form appears as a constant theme in much of his paintings entwined with his advocacy for representation. Mastering the use of acrylics, watercolor, and digital, his expressionistic body of work echoes a somber opalescence evident by his gradation of pinks and soft, sinuous lines. He graduated with a major in Visual Communication from the UP College of Fine Arts. http://instagram.com/tokwap
About The Abungalow Project: ABungalow Artist Residency holds space for artists to connect, explore, and develop artistic work in Negros Island, Philippines. This residency provides select artists with a highly focused, one-to-two-month environment for creative production, culminating in an exhibition at the adjacent Kapitana Gallery. https://abungalowresidency.org/
